Galileo was a conspiracy theorist. He provided people with dangerous information, according to the Church, suggested it could be witnessed with independent thinking and therefore contrary believes were of necessity those of sheep.

Glad we put him under house arrest. Too bad we didn't have control over the Mayans, Chinese, Indians and other cultures of that day. It burns my ass that those fools were allowed to promulgate such dangerous theories unchecked.

He is buried in: Basilica di Santa Croce di Firenze, where some other famous Italian thinkers are buried, according to wikipedia, "such as Michelangelo, Galileo, Machiavelli, Foscolo, Gentile and Rossini."

is it just me, or do most webpages with fringe beliefs use nothing more than basic HTML formatting? i feel like these guys made the webpage themselves because they wouldn't trust any web designer to do it for them...

natty_dread wrote:Do ponies have sex?

Army of GOD wrote:the term heterosexual is offensive. I prefer to be called "normal"

is it just me, or do most webpages with fringe beliefs use nothing more than basic HTML formatting? i feel like these guys made the webpage themselves because they wouldn't trust any web designer to do it for them...

I've had the same thought. It is always a blast from like 1992, with a starry background, no image borders, and usually glowing section dividers. Long live Geocities and the like.

_sabotage_ wrote:Galileo was a conspiracy theorist. He provided people with dangerous information, according to the Church, suggested it could be witnessed with independent thinking and therefore contrary believes were of necessity those of sheep.

Sure. For those who consider this guy ...

... and this guy ...

... to be on equal intellectual footing, I can see that that argument certainly makes sense.

I didn't know you held Alex Jones in such a high esteem, too much hot air for my liking.

So what was it? Do Al Qaeda have a united mission statement? Would other members of Al Qaeda take orders from Bin Laden? Do they pool funds? How many people could we say are Laden's boys?

Or was he just an uncle that showed up for a free Thanksgiving dinner to the other's? How was he funded? Let's get an image of the bad guy. What exactly were his means? Motive and opportunity? Is Al Qaeda like the Christian church, where millions of people are showing up at thousands of different places, having hundreds of distinct interpretations and tenets, and he was Jesus? Or was he just like a rich has been? Or are some down with us, and help us with regime change in the countries listed as evil, like the ones we gave the weapons to in Libya? Or are we like their devil and all want to destroy us? Like the ones we gave the weapons to in Libya?

_sabotage_ wrote:Do Al Qaeda have a united mission statement? Would other members of Al Qaeda take orders from Bin Laden? Do they pool funds? How many people could we say are Laden's boys?

Out of curiosity, what kind of answer are you honestly expecting to get here? You seem to either be under the impression that I have the login code to Osama's copy of QuickBooksPro, or are insinuating that you do.

And to get the jump on where I'm sure this is headed ... absence of information does not evidence action by unseen, sinister forces.

Amazing, twelve years on and we don't know shit. We haven't got the slightest idea how much power he had or if he had any way to carry it out, and yet are so confident it was him. We don't know what Al Qaeda is, or even if they are with us or against us. Just bang, bang and a picture of his damn face with a story to go with it. A mutating story that somehow always ends with fear mongering and and interventionism.

But what if there were another set of folks, who had clearly shown that the result is something that would have furthered their plans? Who had the means, motive and opportunity to a greater extent than some guy in a cave. We definitely have not conclusively confirmed by any means that 9/11 was orchestrated by Bin Laden, and yet for some reason it's always been a closed case.

_sabotage_ wrote:Amazing, twelve years on and we don't know shit. We haven't got the slightest idea how much power he had or if he had any way to carry it out, and yet are so confident it was him. We don't know what Al Qaeda is, or even if they are with us or against us. Just bang, bang and a picture of his damn face with a story to go with it. A mutating story that somehow always ends with fear mongering and and interventionism.

But what if there were another set of folks, who had clearly shown that the result is something that would have furthered their plans? Who had the means, motive and opportunity to a greater extent than some guy in a cave. We definitely have not conclusively confirmed by any means that 9/11 was orchestrated by Bin Laden, and yet for some reason it's always been a closed case.

I've never said it's been "conclusively confirmed by any means that 9/11 was orchestrated by Bin Laden."

The lack of total information on any subject isn't proof of the influence of sinister forces working in the shadows.

- I don't believe the lack of conclusive confirmation about 9/11 is proof George Bush knew in advance. You do.

- I don't believe the fact a Giant Squid hasn't been photographed alive is proof George Bush has secretly killed all the world's giant squids. You may.

- I don't believe the fact I don't know what restaurant my g/f Esmerelda went to with her friends last night is proof she was out banging George Bush. You may.

If we don't have real evidence it was these guys,why do we just keep letting another set of guys not only hold them over us, but other countries with our backing? The exchange is just a loss of freedom and an economy for us and a gain of money and power for them.

Every US soldier I've met has been pretty gung ho, they have the best equipment in the world, our surveillance equipment is as good as it gets, we offer the highest bounties, plus we have the most expensive investigative branches in the world at home, and we don't know shit.

We have to do freedom of information acts to get any sight of a piece of evidence that might exist, let alone those that tie any of those there to the act. Serial numbers that confirm wreckage was the planes, video tape of the terrorists getting on at the various airports, video footage of flight 77 hitting the Pentagon, they all result in nothing to confirm anything. They could have put any faces up there for all the evidence we have been shown. We dropped the ball that day, but the pieces are still there to examine, and yet we haven't.

If we can't confirm the story, we have to at some point see if there is one that fits better. The art of science is the story that fits all the pieces best until we get new pieces to work with. They had most of the pieces disposed of immediately in New York, when asked about the plane at the Pentagon, they reported it vaporized. When it was proven impossible, they said, no they have it in a warehouse. Can we have confirmation by serial number? Nope. How about any of videos. Well no plane was seen in them. I see.

Is there something so destructive to our war on terror for us to see the serial number on a plane whose blackbox doesn't make a lot of sense, played a magic trick on the cameras and confounded all of our defenses protecting the most restricted airspace in the world with an hour's heads up?

_sabotage_ wrote:If we don't have real evidence it was these guys,why do we just keep letting another set of guys not only hold them over us, but other countries with our backing? The exchange is just a loss of freedom and an economy for us and a gain of money and power for them.

I hardly think there's anyone who has been more critical of the U.S./NATO on this board than me.

Nonetheless, I subscribe to a rational worldview in which the lack of total information on any particular subject isn't proof of anything other than a lack of total information.

Project MKUltra was the code name of a U.S. government covert research operation experimenting in the behavioral engineering of humans (mind control) through the CIA's Scientific Intelligence Division. The program began in the early 1950s, was officially sanctioned in 1953, was reduced in scope in 1964, further curtailed in 1967 and "officially halted" in 1973.[1] The program engaged in many illegal activities;[2][3][4][5] in particular it used unwitting U.S. and Canadian citizens as its test subjects, which led to controversy regarding its legitimacy.[6][7][8][9] MKUltra involved the use of many methodologies to manipulate people's individual mental states and alter brain functions, including the surreptitious administration of drugs (especially LSD) and other chemicals, hypnosis, sensory deprivation, isolation, verbal and sexual abuse, as well as various forms of torture.[10]

The scope of Project MKUltra was broad, with research undertaken at 80 institutions, including 44 colleges and universities, as well as hospitals, prisons and pharmaceutical companies.[11] The CIA operated through these institutions using front organizations, although sometimes top officials at these institutions were aware of the CIA's involvement.[12] MKUltra was allocated 6 percent of total CIA funds.[13]

Project MKUltra was first brought to public attention in 1975 by the Church Committee of the U.S. Congress, and a Gerald Ford commission to investigate CIA activities within the United States. Investigative efforts were hampered by the fact that CIA Director Richard Helms ordered all MKUltra files destroyed in 1973; the Church Committee and Rockefeller Commission investigations relied on the sworn testimony of direct participants and on the relatively small number of documents that survived Helms' destruction order.[14]

Lesson.. Your government isnt always playing by the same set of rules. And if they feel like it they can bend or break those laws at will.

warmonger1981 wrote:Lesson.. Your government isnt always playing by the same set of rules. And if they feel like it they can bend or break those laws at will.

Undoubtedly there are bureaucracies in the U.S. government that are more powerful than the elected political leadership. This isn't a conspiracy, this is how formal organizations evolve, from the government, to Riverside Community College, to your local Taco Bell. It may very well be a bad thing (or not), but it's highly unlikely it involves robe-wearing bankers conducting satanic rituals in the Bohemian Grove and coordinating a global plot, anymore than other bad things - like Heart Disease, Broccoli 'n Cheese Hot Pockets or Saturday night at xeno's house - involve that.

Dr. Morgenthau writing about BuSec (you will never hear Alex Jones quote this; his goal is to advance an easy-to-understand, 2-dimensional view) -

As in fully developed totalitarian systems the power of the secret police is in good measure the reflection of the political power of its head, a Himmler or a Beria, so does the power of the Bureau of Security over the Department of State reflect in good measure the political power of those whose political philosophy its leading officials represent, to whom they owe their present positions and their primary loyalties as well. These are not the President of the United States or the Secretary of State but certain members of Congress and, more particularly, of the Senate.

The police system which has been established in the Department of State is their secret police in a more profound sense than it is the secret police of the executive branch. It is through it that these members of Congress are kept informed about the – presumably secret – operations of the Department of State, and it is through it that they exert a direct or indirect influence upon its operations. To an extent which changes with the ebbs and tides of political fortune, it is these members of Congress, and not the President or the Secretary of State, who determine the operations of the Department of State and its affiliated agencies.

saxitoxin wrote:Undoubtedly there are bureaucracies in the U.S. government that are more powerful than the elected political leadership. This isn't a conspiracy, this is how formal organizations evolve, from the government, to Riverside Community College, to your local Taco Bell. It may very well be a bad thing (or not), but it's highly unlikely it involves robe-wearing bankers conducting satanic rituals in the Bohemian Grove and coordinating a global plot

Gonna have to call bullshit on this one saxi as it directly contradicts what I saw in this one documentary.

I like how it starts semi-lucid and then - as you get further in - the "33 Conspiracy Theories that Turned Out to Be True!!!!!" includes "The Illuminati Were not a Historic Society But have been proven to be a secret plan for global domination," "Karen Silkwood was Murdered", etc.